Conventions 2012

Biden to Go on Attack in Convention Address

By Naureen Khan

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Democratic Vice President Joe Biden(Richard A. Bloom)

Vice President Joe Biden served as witness to the accomplishments of President Obama and did not back off his role as attack dog for the Obama-Biden reelection campaign in his speech at the Democratic National Convention Thursday night.

Biden assailed the Republican presidential nominee for being insensitive to the outsourcing of American jobs overseas, citing his support for the "territorial tax," in which profits of American corporations overseas could escape taxation in the United States. It’s a sore subject with many of the working-class white voters who are up for grabs in the election.

“Governor Romney believes that in the global economy, it doesn’t much matter where American companies put their money or where they create jobs,” Biden said. “I found it fascinating last week, when Governor Romney said, that as president, he’d take a jobs tour. Well, with all his support for outsourcing, it’s going to have to be a foreign trip.”

Although Biden did not specifically reference Romney's tenure at Bain Capital in his comments on outsourcing, the company is reported to have been a pioneer in the practice.

Biden also stuck the campaign message that President Obama is hewed to in his address: marking the progress made by the Obama administration and the work still left to do.

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“In the face of the deepest economic crisis in our lifetimes, this nation proved itself,” Biden said. “We’re on a mission to move this nation forward, from doubt and downturn, to promise and prosperity … a mission we will continue and a mission we will complete.”

Biden also took viewers through two critical moments of the Obama presidency: the decision to order a raid on the compound of Al Quaida leader Osama bin Laden and the bailout of the auto industry.

Biden had the chance to boom his favorite line from the campaign trail, this time with delegates joining him: "Osama Bin Laden is dead, and General Motors is alive."